In Honor of Dewey Dell
As we wrap up As I Lay Dying, nearly all of our characters on the hero's wagon failed to get what they were going to town for. Vardaman didn't get his train, Cash didn't get his tools (on top of his foot being amputated soon so he can't even really work on the barn roof), and Dewey Dell didn't get her abortion. Darl's being carted off to a mental institution in Jackson, and Jewel lost his horse. The only person who got what he wanted was Anse. But in the mess at the end of the book, I can't help but feeling that Dewey Dell has been severely overlooked over the course of the entire novel.
As I Lay Dying is chock-full of chapters about the men in the book. Darl and Cash get more than their fair share of narration, especially at the end. Everyone's little storyline is coming to a close at the end of the book, but Darl and Cash's are presented in such a way that they overshadow Dewey Dell's. Hers is just as important and impactful, but because it's told nearly entirely without her own narration, it doesn't leave as much of an impression as Darl's. When she's talking to the pharmacists, we only see Dewey Dell from a stranger's point of view. She isn't as real to us because she's just a passing character in someone else's life at this point. It's also much less action-packed, leaving readers less interested in the outcome.
That is, unless you're me. Dewey Dell is my favorite character in As I Lay Dying, at least in regard to whose outcome I care about most. And finishing this book broke my heart. Throughout the entire novel, Dewey Dell has only been cheated and manipulated and tricked. She's in a terrible situation, she's lost, she's confused, and she doesn't know what to do. Everything about her life chalks her up to the most screwed over character in this entire book to me.
Dewey Dell starts out As I Lay Dying pregnant at 17 years old with no one to help her. Her mother is on her deathbed and dies quickly, leaving no one remotely helpful around the house. Dewey Dell has to fill in for everything her mother did, including parenting Vardaman. Her family isn't particularly kind to her, either. Darl harasses her constantly about her secret, and the rest of the family doesn't really care about her. Anse makes her prepare dinner immediately after Addie's death, and we get the feeling that they only leave her alone when they don't need her. When they need her, she has to be there for them.
The only thing Dewey Dell wants throughout As I Lay Dying is an abortion. And she never gets it. Instead, she's first denied access and then raped after being tricked with fake medicine. The first pharmacy scene made me angry, but the second was upsetting and sad. Dewey Dell was so oblivious, but there was also almost no way she could have known what was going to happen. She was like a fly landing on a Venus flytrap. Then after all of that, she loses the money for the medicine to Anse, who uses it to buy his teeth. She can never win. Lafe isn't even in the picture anymore to provide some form of support. She is utterly alone, taken advantage of in every way.
And yet...I admire her. Her life is shit. There's no denying that. But she always stays calm and she doesn't give up. Yes, her calmness/refusing to stand up for herself could be seen as bending over backward for her family since she just does whatever they want. But she's trying to avoid conflict -- something that would easily worsen her situation. It's the smart move on her part.
In a world where everyone is trying to stop her abortion, Dewey Dell continues to walk straight forward, unwavering in her path. Despite Darl's constant harassing, she still seeks the medicine. She goes into unfamiliar settings where she's unsure of herself -- she doesn't know what to say or even what she's looking for -- knowing full well that she has to explain why she was in the pharmacy to her family. When she's first denied the medicine, she decides to try again in Jefferson instead of giving up. She keeps pressing everywhere, trying to get the medicine until she's absolutely certain that the person in question won't help her.
A lot of me wishes we could have seen Dewey Dell's story to its end. I want to see her succeed. But more of me knows that it won't have a happy ending. After all, no one else (except for Anse, our main bastard of the story) got their happy ending. Getting an abortion in the 20th century was not an easy task, and given what she's gone through already, it doesn't seem too likely she'll succeed. If anything, she'll become like her mother -- trapped in a life she doesn't really want, just waiting for death. I like to imagine As I Lay Dying frozen in time: nothing else happens in the world of the Bundrens unless Faulkner says so. That way, at least Dewey Dell doesn't have to continue her life down its current path.
As a fellow lover of Dewey Dell, I agree: she deserves better. She has no support from her family or a female role model or friend to look up to now that her mother is gone, yet she doesn't allow herself to succumb to grief or hopelessness. Even after the awful treatment she receives from first store she goes into, she still continues to look for a solution to her problem on her own. Despite mistreatment, she's steadfast in achieving her goal, and even though that leads to her being hurt and abused, she knows what she wants and is determined to get that. It's admirable.
ReplyDeleteNow that I think about it, Anse basically shafted everyone just so he could get the happy end he wished for. So much for a Hero. Dewey Dell's treatment is undoubtedly worse since she is the only female on this journey. And I think for that reason her plight is not seen by any of the other adventurers in the wagon, much less Anse, her own father. Dewey Dell does seem to have the attitude of trying to solve her problems herself, since the other people in the wagon won't be able to help her.
ReplyDeleteAt first, Dewey Dell's calmness frustrated me. The 2019 woman in me wanted her to yell and stick up for herself. As you point out, this isn't very feasible for her and definitely won't help her situation. But I reading this made me realize that her calm persistence is her own way of "resisting". She refuses to give into emotion or despair and continues to calmly ask for what she needs - despite not even knowing what it is. Yet through being put down and turned away and generally having no support whatsoever, she stubbornly continues to ask the doctors for help.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that by narrating Dewey Dell's two encounters with monstrous pharmacists in "town" through the outsiders' perspective, Faulkner actually generates a good deal of sympathy for her story. We already have a good sense of her anxiety and confusion through her stream-of-consciousness narration, but to fully get what's going on in these scenes, we maybe need to see her from an outsider's perspective. We've been talking about how hearing the Bundrens talked down by these town folks makes us inclined to be defensive on their behalf (how dare Albert dismiss Cash's hand-hewn artisan coffin as "homemade"!), and this is especially true with Dewey Dell. We see the victim from the monster's point of view, and for me as a reader, that's quite effective. In my mind, it's her dilemma that's foremost at the end of the novel, even more than Darl's.
ReplyDeleteDewey Dell definitely deserved better from her brothers and her dad throughout this book. Another reason I found myself admiring her was how she seems to be the most steadfast character throughout the book - again and again after Cash gets hurt, she's described as sitting beside him and taking care of him. She's also the only one ever described as even paying a little bit of attention to Vardaman, and even at the beginning, she makes dinner for the family without ever complaining. And at the end of it all, she gets screwed.
ReplyDeleteI like to imagine she'll somehow end up okay, but I also agree with you that it probably won't happen.